Chlorine compounds which readily remain in vivo, specifically, an accumulative chlorine-containing compound including dioxins as typical examples, have carcinogenesis and likely cause liver disorder and the like, and the compounds are transferred from a gravida to a fetus. Accordingly, effects of the compounds on a human body have been focused, and recently considered as severe problems. It is considered that approximately 90% of uptake of the accumulative chlorine-containing compounds taken into a human body comes from food, and accumulative chlorine-containing compounds after the uptake are accumulated in fatty tissues. Therefore, it is desired to provide an agent for promoting excretion of accumulative chlorine-containing compounds, which can excrete accumulative chlorine-containing compounds after being uptaken in vivo as efficiently as possible.
Some trials wherein cholestyramine (trade name: Questran, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company), which is an anion exchange resin and is sold as a cholesterol depressant, was used as an agent for promoting excretion of dioxins, are described in Fukuoka Acta Med. 78(5): 266-280, 1987; Fukuoka Acta Med. 78(5): 249-253, 1987; Fukuoka Acta Med. 82(5): 326-329, 1991; Fukuoka Acta Med. 82(5): 310-316, 1991; Fukuoka Acta Med. 82(5): 305-309, 1991; Xenobiotica, Vol. 21, No. 3, 351-357, 1991; Fukuoka Acta Med. 82(5): 330-334, 1991; Fukuoka Acta Med. 82(5): 317-325, 1991; Fukuoka Acta Med. 84(5): 257-262, 1993; Fukuoka Acta Med. 84(5): 282-286, 1993; Fukuoka Acta Med. 86(5): 226-233, 1995; Fukuoka Acta Med. 88(5): 186-192, 1997 and the like. However, effectiveness of the resin remains unclear at present, because these articles relate to a trial wherein cholestyramine alone was effective, a trial wherein cholestyramine alone was ineffective, and a trial wherein a combined use of cholestyramine with rice bran fiber was effective and the like.
Accordingly, an objective of the present invention is to provide an agent for promoting excretion of accumulative chlorine-containing compounds, which comprises as an active ingredient a pharmaceutically acceptable anion exchange resin.